


The Anime Beach Episode

by agalaxywithinyou



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/M, M/M, NB Pidge, Vacation, anime beach episode, literally just, the squad having a good time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-25
Updated: 2016-08-25
Packaged: 2018-08-10 23:09:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7865128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agalaxywithinyou/pseuds/agalaxywithinyou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Dude,” Pidge muttered, dropping their bag in a shady spot, readjusting their sun hat, “this is like… totally the beach episode of an anime.”</i>
  <br/>
  <i>Hunk hummed in agreement, Coran frowned in confusion, and Lance was already making plans to beat Keith in a makeshift game of volleyball. Shiro and Allura were just hoping that nobody would get seriously injured throughout the course of the day.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Anime Beach Episode

**Author's Note:**

> this is based on my meme friend Zoe's [post](http://donttalktomeugh.tumblr.com/post/148041504732/the-voltron-episode-i-need-and-deserve) about the voltron beach episode we all need and deserve (took me like 30000 years to write this lol, but it was just so nice and feel good and it was v cathartic!!) so a huge thank you to her for penning the original idea and being a nerd :D

Team Voltron was taking a much needed and well deserved break. _Saving the universe is hard_ , Lance and Hunk had insisted. _Can we like… go to the beach, or something?_

Allura hadn’t liked the idea at first, for obvious reasons, but had relented after a week straight of incessant whinging and repetitions of the question. And so here they were, all adorned in various beach gear and clutching towels under their arms, on a secluded and empty beach back on Earth. They had taken a fifteen minute long trek through the forest to get here, passed a shady picnic area complete with a barbecue, before they found themselves overlooking the beach. It was picture perfect – white sand warmed beneath the radiant sun, gently swaying palm trees, the sky unblemished by clouds, the water crystalline blue, the waves frothy white as they threw themselves against the shore.

“Dude,” Pidge muttered, dropping their bag in a shady spot and readjusting their sun hat, “this is like… totally the beach episode of an anime.”

Hunk hummed in agreement, Coran frowned in confusion, and Lance was already making plans to beat Keith in a makeshift game of volleyball. Shiro and Allura were just hoping that nobody would get seriously injured throughout the course of the day. 

 **. . .**  

Keith had immediately denied Lance’s request to play volleyball and, for the past half hour, had instead entertained himself with reading under the shade of a palm tree. With his legs stretched out before him, back pressed against the trunk, a pair of sunglasses protecting his eyes from the glare of the sand, he felt surprisingly calm.

That was, until a familiar shadow fell over him, and an even more familiar voice met his ears.

“Keith,” Lance sang, dragging out the syllables annoyingly long, dropping to sit beside him. “Keith, my buddy, my pal, my friend –”

“What do you want?” Keith deadpanned at him, and even though his eyes were hidden behind sunglasses, he was sure Lance could feel his glare.

He paused momentarily to give him a dopey grin. “Can you put sunscreen on my back?”

“Can’t you do it yourself?”

“I can’t reach,” he pouted. “Please?”

Keith sighed, feigning exasperation but glad that he could pass off his reddened cheeks as sunburn, and motioned for Lance to hand him the bottle and spin around. He quickly complied, humming in satisfaction, and Keith set to work on covering his back. He definitely wasn’t thinking about the fact that Lance’s brown skin was really soft, that he was practically glowing under the bright sun, and how perfect the dips and planes of his shoulders and back felt beneath his fingers.

He swallowed. Nope, he wasn’t thinking about any of that.

If Lance noticed him lingering a little longer than necessary, he didn’t mention it. Just absently hummed a tune under his breath, legs stretched out before him, looking perfectly at ease. Keith supposed he would be, since he had practically grown up on the beach, meanwhile…

Well, Keith couldn’t really remember ever visiting the beach as a kid. Maybe once, with a foster family who had been eager to make his time with them as normal and familial as possible, but the memory was fuzzy. He clenched his jaw and realised that Lance’s back was well and truly covered, and he wiped the remaining sunscreen on his board shorts.

“There you go, dumbass.”

“Thanks,” grinned Lance, apparently not put off by the half-hearted insult, but then he was grabbing Keith by the hand and pulling him to his feet.

He sputtered in protest, trying to resist, but that only seemed to fuel Lance’s strength, and he laughed as he pulled him towards the water. It was cool but pleasant as he was dragged in, and they stopped at about waist height, Keith taking the brief moment of respite to glare at him. But then Lance was tackling him around the middle, and he was falling into the water with a shocked shout, the other’s boy’s warm body pressed flush against him as he flailed and tried to right himself.  

When he rose to the surface, sputtering indignantly and pushing his hair out of his eyes, Lance was so close that he could see the water clinging to his lashes, the gleeful sparkle in his eyes, the rivulets running down his chest.

He shoved at Lance, cheeks burning, and that quickly escalated into a water fight that Pidge egged on and Shiro had to break up. A much better option than confronting his decidedly gay feelings.

 **. . .**  

Hunk had been slaving over it for what felt like years.

It was perfect, a highly accurate replica, made from a mathematically calculated mix of wet and dry sand, held together by sheer force of will. Shiro had joined him halfway through his journey, because Allura had been napping, the others were busy hosting competitions about who could hold their breath the longest underwater, and he was the only other Paladin to have carefully studied and memorised the entire layout of the castle. He would have asked Coran, but he wanted it to be a surprise for the eccentric Altean.

When it was finished, Hunk excitedly called the rest of the group over to look (except Allura, who was still asleep) and proudly gestured at it. “Guys! Look! It’s the castle of lions!”

They crowded round, making noises of amazement as they noted the details and accuracy of the impressively tall sand castle, and Hunk beamed.

“You’re such a nerd,” Lance said affectionately, patting his friend on the back.

Keith nodded in agreement. “Very nerdy, but pretty cool.”

“Amazing replica, Hunk!” That was Coran, looking the most excited out of all of them. “The attention to detail! The proportions! Absolute perfection!”

“Seashells,” said Pidge, nodding with determination. “We need to find seashells to decorate it.”

“Why?” asked Shiro.

“ _Because_. Don’t fight me on this.”

Lance chimed in. “Can I help?”

“No offence, Lance, but no.”

“Too bad. I’m taking offence.”

Pidge shrugged, turned on their heel, and left in search of the perfect seashells. Lance stuck his tongue out at their retreating back, and Coran and Hunk promptly dove into an intense and difficult to follow conversation about the mechanics of the castle. The others blinked, exchanged very confused looks, and decided to leave them to their nerdy discussion.

 **. . .**  

Allura blinked sleepily, wondering what noise had startled her from what had been a very warm and pleasant nap. She yawned, propped herself up on her elbows, and lifted her sunglasses so that she could properly observe what she had missed.

There was Hunk and Coran absorbed in conversation, gesturing animatedly at the sand castle they were standing next to. Pidge was a fair way down the beach, picking up shells and promptly tossing them aside, looking set on their task. And then there was Lance and Keith, being dragged out of the surf by an extremely frustrated looking Shiro.

To be perfectly honest, she wasn’t very surprised.

“Will you two stop trying to drown?” she heard Shiro ask exasperatedly.  

Lance scoffed. “We weren’t trying to _drown_ –”

“It’s all Lance’s fault.” Keith scowled and crossed his arms over his bare chest. “He challenged me to do twenty forward rolls underwater.”

“Yeah, but that was _after_ you challenged me to back flip off my surf board.”

“You dared me to drink a mouthful of salt water.”

“It would have been funny!”

Shiro watched the back and forth for a few moments, then let his shoulders sag forward with defeat and left them to their bickering. He made a beeline for Allura, who was watching on with an amused smile tugging on her lips, and collapsed beside her.

“It’s like I accidently adopted four toddlers.”

She laughed, pulled him down to lay on the towel beside her, and let her eyes flutter shut with a satisfied hum. “They’ll survive without you for half an hour. Hopefully. Take a break.”

She felt his gaze upon her, but when she cracked open an eye, he was settling back with his hands under his head and staring up at the perfectly blue sky.

“If they actually start drowning let me know, yeah?”

She grinned, not making any promises, and let Keith and Lance’s arguing blend into the background noise of the ocean and rustling palm leaves.

**. . .**

Hunk didn’t even have to shout to get everyone to come to the picnic area for lunch. The moment he started digging the food out of the picnic basket and cooking on the barbeque, it was like they all developed a superhuman sense of smell and decided to investigate the mouth-watering aroma.

He whistled as he flipped the burgers, Lance offering to help with anything he could that would speed up the process, and they chatted easily as the sun shone down through the trees bordering the grassy area.

Before long, he was serving up perfectly crafted burgers and cans of soft drink to the very hungry group seated round the wooden picnic table.  Coran and Allura were intently studying their food, asking questions about the meat and seeds on the buns with genuine curiosity, whilst Pidge and Lance were making obscene noises as they ate. Keith was quiet, but undoubtedly enjoying his meal.

“Hunk,” said Shiro, having just taken his first bite, face slack with amazement as if he had just discovered the answer to life, “this is the best burger I’ve ever had in my entire life.”

Hunk simply grinned, waving away the inquiries about how he made them taste so damn good, and took a seat next to Allura. They listened to Keith and Lance bicker again about who had really won the challenge about who could swim out the furthest, exchanging smug and knowing looks with one another (that the two boys in question were laughably oblivious to) and listened to Allura’s retelling of her times visiting planets with beaches much like this one.

When they had all eaten their fill, Coran observed the humans, eyes narrowed and expression uncharacteristically serious. “Paladins, I have heard that your species cannot swim for half an hour after eating. So don’t even _think_ about going back in the water.”

Not even a second after Coran had finished speaking, Lance was out of his seat and sprinting towards the beach, yelling something that sounded suspiciously like ‘ _YOLO’_. Coran screeched indignantly and ran after him, obviously unaware that the rule was more of a precaution than anything, and they heard a loud splash followed by a horrified scream and loud laughter.

Coran would soon figure out that Lance wasn’t in danger of dying. They all shared a look of amusement, then went back to finishing their drinks and discussing their favourite deserts.

**. . .**

“Pidge?” called Allura, standing below a palm tree with a concerned frown on her face. “Er… what are you doing up there?”

Pidge stopped what they were doing, readjusted their legs that were tightly wrapped around the trunk, and peered down at her. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

She blinked. They had managed to scale one the taller trees, bent at an angle to the ground and hanging out over the water, and were securing a rope around it with a complex looking knot. “I… I have no clue.”

Pidge didn’t enlighten her, instead sticking their tongue between their teeth as they finished the task at hand, then carefully clambered down and dropped the last metre to the ground. They admired the hanging rope, gave it an experimental tug, and seemed satisfied when it didn’t loosen.

“This, princess,” said Pidge, “is a rope swing. It’s a rope. You swing on it, then jump into the water. It’s fun.”

She gave a thoughtful hum in reply.

“Wanna try?”

She eyed it with a slight hint of apprehension, but brightly said, “How about we get the others over? I’m sure they’d love to try it out as well.”

Pidge looked almost mischievous as they cupped their hands round their mouth and called for everybody to come over, as if they knew something that Allura didn’t. But as soon as they had all arrived, looking somewhat intrigued as to why they were all convening, she found out what it was.

“Guys,” they grinned, “we’re holding a ‘who can make the biggest splash competition’.”

 _This_ , she thought wearily, _probably isn’t going to end well_. Shiro was thinking the exact same thing.

Hunk and Coran looked pleasantly surprised. Keith looked like he wanted to leave right then and there, because he had definitely had enough competitions and near death experiences today; Lance, on the other hand, had a mad grin on his face.

“It’s on, mullet head!” he crowed, getting obnoxiously close to Keith as if to intimidate him. “Prepare to lose to me – _again_.”

Keith rolled his eyes and looked over at Hunk. “If he hurts himself doing something stupid, I want you to film it and post it on YouTube.”

“I never do anything stupid,” Lance huffed, which earned him a raised brow and deadpan expression from everyone.

He pouted. “Okay, sometimes I do stupid things. But then Keith does something even stupider.”

Keith opened his mouth to retort, but Pidge quickly slapped their hands over their mouths, ignoring their muffled protests, and declared the competition officially begun.

Unsurprisingly, Lance didn’t win, and neither did he beat Keith. Pidge was the smallest and so was currently coming last, and following them in order was Lance, Keith, Coran, Shiro, and then Hunk – the only one left was Allura.

“Your turn, princess!” said Coran, apparently not put out by his ranking, but instead looking rather excited to see her jump.

Everyone cheered in encouragement, even Lance (although he still looked particularly grumpy), and she laughed.

“Alright, if you insist.”

Everyone stood a safe distance back and watched as she gracefully pulled herself up onto the rope, using the knot at the bottom as a foothold, and began using her momentum to swing back and forth. Her long white hair billowed in the wind (she would have looked right at home in a shampoo commercial), grinning at the others excited whooping, and she let go of the rope and tucked herself into a cannon ball. She fell into the water with a loud noise, and the splash that followed was –

“Yes! Oh my god! Allura wins!” Pidge hollered, letting Hunk lift them onto his shoulders so they could parade around. “Holy _shit_! Did you see that? That’s the biggest splash I’ve ever seen in my entire life!”

Allura stepped out of the surf, giggling at their antics, and high fived Coran (they had picked up a lot of Earth customs from their time with the paladins).

“What does she win?” Hunk asked, and they all frowned in thought until she waved them off.

“I just want another nap,” she declared, “and for Lance and Keith to keep their arguments to a whisper for the next hour at least.”

Both the boys in question shrugged, mumbling that that was fair.

**. . .**

“Dude – dude, _seriously_ , I’m fine, it’s just a bit of blood.”

Keith raised an eyebrow, forcing Lance to sit on the sand beside him, and started poking at his nose with his tongue between his teeth. “There’s blood all over your surfboard, _and_ me, _and_ you. Does it hurt?”

“N – ouch!”

He leant back, gestured for Lance to press the cloth against his bleeding nose again. “I don’t think it’s broken.”

“Great. Please tell me you didn’t see me wiping out, though.”

Keith gave a cat like grin. “I saw the whole thing.”

Lance groaned and flopped back dramatically, and Keith continued.

“I think Pidge was filming, actually.”

“Oh, fuck off.”

Keith laughed and patted his knee in mocking comfort, before getting to his feet. “You’re gonna have to sit out for another half hour, just so you don’t make it any worse.”

“Okay, mum,” he scoffed, propping himself up on his elbows, and they both glared at each other until it quickly turned to giggles, and Keith headed off in Shiro’s direction with a final eye roll.

The smile didn’t fade from his face for a long while, and he dug his toes into the sand and watched the gentle waves, somewhat impatiently waiting for his nose to stop bleeding. It wasn’t too bad, though, just taking some time to sit in silence and try to memorise how the salty breeze felt on his skin. He knew it would be some time before they got a chance to do something like this again, and it had been so long since they had left earth that the smell of the ocean had almost begun to escape him. Which honestly scared him more than anything. 

“You look lonely, dude,” said Hunk, having approached without him noticing, and Lance quickly snapped out of his thoughts. “And what’s with the bloody cloth?”

Coran was beside him, frowning in apparent concern. “Are you okay, young paladin?”

He gave a nonchalant shrug, hoping that it made him look cool and tough. “I’m fine. I rode this huge ass wave, pulled a sick stunt, and got distracted by Keith telling me how cool I looked. Nearly broke my nose. No biggie.”

Hunk sniggered, and the two sat down on either side of him. “Okay, Evil Knievel. Did Keith forbid you from going back in the water until it stops bleeding?”

“Yup. Asshole.”

Hunk leant back and grinned, stretching his legs out before him with a satisfied sigh. He let a comfortable silence stretch on for a few moments before he turned to Lance with a warm smile. “Man, I’ve really missed this.

Lance hummed in agreement. “Yeah, dude, same. Shame there isn’t a pizza shack, though.”

“I’m still stuffed from the burgers,” he said with a laugh, before turning to Coran. “Hey, we’re going to visit Lance’s family tomorrow, yeah?”

Coran was absently twirling his moustache, but brightened considerably at being addressed. “Of course! I definitely enjoyed conversing with your parents last time we were here, Lance. They’re very lovely people with an extraordinary knack for the culinary arts.”

“I know right!” Lance sat back with a wistful sigh. “Hunk, my dude, do you remember the first summer you came and stayed with us? And mama and papa cooked enough to feed a small village?”

“Lance, your family is practically a small village,” he giggled, and Lance clutched at his heart as if the words had seriously wounded him, before joining in with the laughter and shrugging.

“It hurts, but it’s true… Hey, Coran, were there any beaches back on Altea?”

Coran’s eyes looked misty and far away for a brief moment, and Lance thought that he might have touched a nerve, but then a smile lit up his face and he gestured animatedly as he talked. “Altea wasn’t really known for its beaches, probably because of the flesh-eating krill inhabiting the oceans, but I _do_ remember the first planet with a beach that I visited. The sand was actually just granules of sugar, so you could eat it, and the water was bright green and temporarily dyed your skin. There was apparently a Thessalean octopus swimming out in the bay, so we weren’t exactly meant to go swimming – but we did anyway, and nobody got fatally stung, so it turned out to be a pretty fun day!”

The two boys were still stuck on the fact that you could _eat the beach_ , both eager to ask Coran if they could possibly pay a quick visit to that planet, but Lance got quickly distracted by some laughter coming from the surf.

He squinted out at the ocean to see that Shiro, Allura and Pidge were all perched on surfboards, listening attentively to Keith as he demonstrated how to stand up without toppling over. Lance sputtered angrily.

“What the quiznak! I taught him how to do that, and now he’s claiming credit for it?”

Hunk held him down with a gentle hand on the shoulder, because it looked like he was going to storm over there and give Keith a piece of his mind. “I don’t think he’s _claiming credit_ , Lance.”

“That asshole.” He didn’t appear to have heard Hunk. “I show him how to surf out of the goodness of my heart, and now he takes advantage of me while I’m wounded… stranded on the beach… forbidden to enter the water for absolutely no reason… unable to go and teach them properly.”

Hunk poked at Lance’s nose, eliciting an indignant squawk of pain, and Coran tried to hide his snigger. “That’s why you’re not going back in the water, drama queen.”

Lance’s voice was muffled as he clamped his hands over his face, warding off any other potential attacks. “Screw you.”

 **. . .**  

Shiro had rented out a van for their short trip to Earth, citing the fact that they couldn’t fly around in a pod because that would get them arrested by the government and experimented on. The rest of them had agreed that his logic was fair.

So when they decided that it was time to pack up and leave the beach, they gathered up all their things and crowded into the van – it was white, could seat eight people (more, if you were really desperate), had floral curtains bordering the windows, and smelt like vanilla and sea salt. Everyone loved it, and agreed that it just added to the authenticity of their sea side adventures.

Shiro was driving, Allura had called shotgun; in the next row of seats was Lance, Keith and Coran; up the back was Hunk and Pidge.

“Pidge, get your feet off the seat.” That was Shiro, shooting them an admonishing glare in the rear view mirror, and they complied with a cheeky grin.

“Sure, dad.”

Shiro groaned. Once somebody started calling him dad, the others didn’t hesitate in joining in. Thus, Lance leant forward in his seat eagerly, perfectly playing the part of overexcited child.

“Dad! I saw an ice cream parlour on the drive in. Can we please stop? Please? _Pretty_ please?”

“Dad,” moaned Hunk, “Pidge just threatened to hack the FBI database. _Again_.”

Allura, Coran and Keith were barely containing their laughter. Shiro simply rolled his eyes and switched on the radio, hoping to be able to drown them out. But an all too familiar bassline filled the van, and Lance screamed and nearly punched Coran in his flailing bid to lean over the front seat and turn up the volume.

“This hit, that ice cold, Michelle Pfieffer, that white gold!” he sang, dancing in his seat, unbridled glee written across his face. Pidge and Hunk bobbed their heads along, laughing, and Keith groaned and let his head rest in his hands.

“This one for them hood girls, them good girls, straight masterpieces!”

Hunk joined in, and their shared enthusiasm made up for the fact that they were a little off key. “Stylin’, whilen’, livin’ it up in the city! Got Chucks on with Saint Laurent, gotta kiss myself I’m so pretty!”

“I’m too hot,” sang Lance at the top of his lungs, and everyone but Keith responded with an enthusiastic ‘hot damn’. Even Allura and Coran were participating, having heard the song played far too many times over the castle’s speaker system, but also previously convinced by Pidge that it was a traditional earth ballad.

“Call the police and the fire man.” Lance turned in his seat and stared hard at Keith, as if he could convince him to sing through sheer force of will. “I’m too hot!”

“Hot damn!”

“Make a dragon wanna retire, man. I’m too hot!”

“Hot damn!”

“Say my name, you know who I am. I’m too hot!”

“Hot damn!”

“And my band about that money – break it down!”

There was a brief pause, a fraction of a millisecond in which everyone but Shiro (who was watching the road like a sensible adult) stared expectantly at Keith… and then something _beautiful_ happened.

Keith sucked in a breath, gave a grin that resembled the sun coming out from behind a cloud, and sang, “Girls hit your hallelujah!”

They all completely lost it, practically screaming the response back at him, laughing and whooping with shocked excitement. Lance threw an arm around his shoulder, nearly crying with joy, and Keith looked pleasantly surprised by the contact. He sang the rest of the section, teeth flashing in a wide grin every time they _ooh’d_ back at him, and when it came to the chorus they were all belting out the instrumental line and dancing, Keith not detesting the fact that Lance’s arm was still around him.

Shiro watched them through the rear view mirror, all smiling unabashedly and moving in time with the beat. Sitting beside him, Allura’s leg bumped against his as she shook her hair out of her face, giggling breathlessly, and he felt a warm tingly feeling in his chest at both the sights.

Someone nudged him as the next lyric came up, and he didn’t hold back as he sang obnoxiously loud and drummed on the steering wheel. “Don’t believe me, just watch!”

 **. . .**  

“This,” moaned Hunk, face pressed up against the glass display case, “is the hardest decision I have ever had to make in my entire life.”

Shiro had pulled over at Lance’s repetitive requests outside of a small and, quite frankly, cute looking ice cream parlour, with a baby pink sign and posters in the windows showing images of mouth-watering sweets. They had crowded themselves inside, quickly observed the interior splashed with various pastel shades and decorated with retro items, then preoccupied themselves with _umming_ and _ahhing_ over the overwhelming variety of flavours before them.

“Shiro,” said Allura thoughtfully, finger tapping against her chin, “what would you recommend? I’ve never had this… _iced cream_ before.”

He hummed thoughtfully, before nodding as he came to a conclusion. “Fruity flavours are the best. I really like strawberry –”

“Shiro, what the hell!” That was Pidge, wearing a look of pain at his betrayal. “Plain vanilla is the superior flavour, hands down.”

“No way.” Hunk straightened up, shaking his head slowly as if that would convince the others to come to their senses. “Decadent chocolate makes me want to cry. It’s so _good_.”

Keith blanched. “That’s way too rich, man. Cookies and cream is the best.”

Lance froze and narrowed his eyes at the dark haired boy. Hunk knew it was because cookies and cream was also his favourite flavour, and was about to comment on how they had finally found something to agree on when –

“Bubble-gum,” declared Lance, obviously just for the sake of arguing with Keith, and Hunk deflated. “Your tastebuds are all wack if you don’t think it’s the nicest.”

The person at the counter cleared their throat, and stopped punching in numbers on the till. “So… one of each of those?”

Shiro gave a weary, grateful smile. “Yes, please.”

The next look was directed at Allura and Coran. “And what can I get you two?”

“We’ll have…” Coran twirled his moustache, looked across at the princess briefly, then leant in slightly, “one of every flavour.”

And that’s how they ended up (finally) leaving the ice cream parlour, each paladin holding a cone, Allura and Coran’s arms laden with dozens of small pots of ice cream, and all of them looking very, _very_ content.

 **. . .**  

They were sitting at the top of a grassy hill overlooking the ocean, smiles on their faces and ice creams in hand, all watching the magnificent sunset. Beautiful oranges melded with pinks and purples, the horizon barely distinct as the colours met the sparkling ocean and reflected off its rippling surface. The roar of the waves was mere static from here, a soothing noise adding to the background hum of the town, and the breeze still distinctly salty upon their tongues.

Shiro, Allura and Coran had claimed the park bench as their own, citing the fact that they were adults and deserved certain priveliges, and the others had sat down on the picnic blanket they brought with a surprisingly small amount of complaining. Hunk was spread eagled, propped up on his elbows so that he could actually eat his ice cream, and Pidge was using him as a pillow. Lance and Keith were sitting beside each other, and if their arms were touching slightly and the smiles they exchanged somewhat affectionate… well, neither of them was going to say anything.

But when Lance stole Keith’s cone and took a generous lick of it, sheepishly admitting that cookies and cream was his favourite flavour too, there was a click then a low whirring noise, and it sounded awfully like a Polaroid camera being –

“Hey!” Lance exclaimed, twisting round to glare at the offending picture taker. It was, of course, Pidge, smiling smugly as they set the camera aside and tucked the photo into their pocket to develop.

“Yes, Lance?”

“What was that for?”

“What was what for?” They blinked innocently, voice annoyingly sweet, but Lance wasn’t having it.

“The picture, _cabron_.”

They made a noise of mockingly exaggerated realisation. “ _Ohhh_ , right, _that_. I’ve been doing it all day – snapping Polaroids of you guys, that is. Hunk is my partner in crime.”

Hunk groaned. “Don’t throw me under the bus like this.”

“If Lance murders me, then we’re going down together,” they said with a nonchalant shrug. “Anyway, that was just a particularly gay moment and I thought I’d immortalise it.”

Lance shouted something like ‘delete it’ and Pidge something along the lines of ‘I can’t, you idiot, it’s a real life photo’, and Keith wrapped an arm around his shoulders to make sure that he didn’t actually chase after a very smugly grinning Pidge.

“Keith,” he whined, dragging out the syllables annoyingly long, “let me fight Pidge. Please. Hold my flower, baby.”

He mimed passing him something, and Keith rolled his eyes. Since he had been alone in the desert for a year, he had missed out on a lot of ‘dank memes’ (their words, not his), and the others had had to catch him up on everything. He was glad to now be in the know, but that didn’t mean he’d play along, as Lance quickly discovered.

“No, hold your own goddamn flower,” he grumbled, and the taller boy gasped in shocked betrayal.

While Lance spewed a dramatic monologue about him trusting Keith and having his heart ripped out and trodden on, Allura manoeuvred herself to sit beside Pidge and Hunk, and asked to see all the photos they had taken.

Soon enough, everyone was gathered round (even Lance), grinning down at the stack of photos that Pidge was flipping through.

There was one of Hunk with a frangipani flower tucked behind his ear, another of Keith sleeping in the shade of a palm tree, Coran looking proudly at Hunk’s sand castle recreation of the ship, Lance in the middle of riding an especially impressive wave, Allura standing in the surf and smiling up at the radiant sun, Shiro spiking a volleyball with a look of laughably serious determination. There were a fair few of Lance and Keith laughing, looking at each other, the moments in between their near constant bickering that everyone seemed to miss but the camera had managed to capture. Shiro and Allura were holding hands in one, silhouetted against the perfectly blue sky. The others doing seemingly mundane things, like smiling or eating or simply sitting, were inexplicably nice to look at. A single millisecond frozen in time, trapped and preserved within ink and glossy paper, something to look back on and reminisce on.

“Thanks, guys,” said Keith softly, nudging Hunk’s arm with his own, and everyone joined in with a chorus of gratitude.

They sat back again, the conversation turning soft and quiet as they recalled the best parts of their day, and watched the sun dip below the horizon – warm and content, smiles on their faces, eyes reflecting the oranges and pinks melting into one another.

The day came to an end, the moon shyly appearing and casting a silvery glow over the water, and they all packed back into the van. The radio was soft and quiet, an indistinct melody that rose and dipped in lilting waves. Keith settled against Lance’s shoulder and fell asleep, Coran played an impromptu game of naughts and crosses with Pidge, Hunk watched the dark landscapes passing by the window, and Allura drew random patterns on Shiro’s knee with her finger.

There was the low murmur of voices, the radio, the rumbling of the engine, and Shiro felt a calmness settle in the hollow of his chest – a warmth, pleasant and fuzzy – and he smiled out at the open road.

Nobody had gotten seriously injured, so maybe the day hadn’t been a bad idea after all.

**Author's Note:**

> yo come find me on tumblr [here](http://omgklance.tumblr.com/)! i take requests and prompts (also feel free to come scream with me about voltron/klance bc i'm constantly suffering)


End file.
